Innovation, influence and business in America's medical cities.

MetroHealth System trustees on Wednesday approved spending nearly $26 million on new medical equipment, refurbishing public spaces like waiting rooms and patient units, building information technology infrastructure and setting up a fund to use during facilities emergencies.

Case Western Reserve University has licensed to a Pennsylvania company the right to make and sell three types of electrodes and a control unit used by researchers to do their neuromodulation work.

Philanthropist and arts patron Toby Devan Lewis is giving $625,000 over five years to the MetroHealth System to help patients overcome paralysis and improve their quality of life as they rehabilitate from traumatic injury. The gift will support functional electrical stimulation and art therapy to advance the healing process.

Cardinal Health is laying off a total of 49 workers at its Indianapolis drug distribution center. Meanwhile, Time magazine/CNN report that some are hailing the Dublin, Ohio, company’s new CEO, George Barrett, as the restorer of Cardinal’s vigor.

MetroHealth System is considering closing the Asia Plaza Health Center’s doors by August, moving the services elsewhere, and forcing more than 2,300 patients to change where they see their doctors, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

The MetroHealth System made a dramatic financial turnaround last year, thanks largely to a laser focus on operating efficiencies and new revenue-generating efforts, as well as a recovery in financial markets. The Cuyahoga County-owned hospital ended 2009 with an excess of revenues over expenses of $52.4 million, compared with a mere $641,000 in 2008.

The University of Cincinnati College of Medicine has launched an early stage cancer drug development program and phase-1 clinical trials unit for patients who have solid tumors that have resisted cancer therapies.

Rising demand for charity care and levels of bad patient debt are problems for most hospitals as the nation struggles to pull itself out of the worst economic recession in a generation. However, hospitals that were on sound financial footing — and those that tightened their belts — prior to the recession now are rebounding and have even begun hiring again.

The financial health of the MetroHealth System improved dramatically in 2009, turning around from an operating loss to income and beginning to fill jobs again rather than cutting them. MetroHealth also will start the year with some price increases.

Following a year of belt tightening, the Cleveland Clinic has revealed plans to hire 1,800 workers — from doctors to support staff — next year, though Cleveland’s largest employer lost $62 million in 2008, according to the Plain Dealer. Altogether, the Clinic, University Hospitals and the MetroHealth System in Cleveland plan to hire more than 2,500 workers in 2010.